xxvii, 826 pages : 24 cm

A "biography of one of America's greatest generals-- and most misunderstood presidents"--

"In his time, Ulysses S. Grant was routinely grouped with George Washington and Abraham Lincoln in the "Trinity of Great American Leaders." But the battlefield commander-turned-commander-in-chief fell out of favor in the twentieth century. In American Ulysses, Ronald C. White argues that we need to once more revise our estimates of him in the twenty-first. Based on seven years of research with primary documents--some of them never examined by previous Grant scholars--this is destined to become the Grant biography of our time. White, a biographer exceptionally skilled at writing momentous history from the inside out, shows Grant to be a generous, curious, introspective man and leader--a willing delegator with a natural gift for managing the rampaging egos of his fellow officers. His wife, Julia Dent Grant, long marginalized in the historic record, emerges in her own right as a spirited and influential partner. Grant was not only a brilliant general but also a passionate defender of equal rights in post-Civil War America. After winning election to the White House in 1868, he used the power of the federal government to battle the Ku Klux Klan. He was the first president to state that the government's policy toward American Indians was immoral, and the first ex-president to embark on a world tour, and he cemented his reputation for courage by racing against death to complete his Personal Memoirs. Published by Mark Twain, it is widely considered to be the greatest autobiography by an American leader, but its place in Grant's life story has never been fully explored--until now."--Publisher's description

Includes bibliographical references (pages 773-787) and index

Part I. Formation 1630-1848 -- "My family is American" -- "My Ulysses" -- West Point -- "Dear Julia" -- "By treaty or the sword" -- "Army of invasion" -- Part II. Trial 1848-1861 -- Panama -- "Forsaken" -- "Hardscrabble" -- Galena -- Part II. Transformation 1861-1865 -- "I am in to do all I can" -- Belmont -- "Unconditional surrender" -- Shiloh -- William Tecumseh Sherman -- "More than forty Richmonds" -- Vicksburg -- Chattanooga -- "Washington's legitimate successor" -- "Battle of the Wilderness" -- Robert E. Lee -- Petersburg -- Appomattox -- Part IV. Reconstruction 1865-1868 -- "I will keep my word" -- "More & more radical" -- "Let us have peace" -- Part V. President 1869-1877 -- "Gold panic" -- "A radical change in Indian policy" -- "Foreign relations" -- Ku Klux Klan -- "The Gilded Age" -- "Malfeasance!" -- Centennial crisis -- Part VI. World citizen 1879-1885 -- American ambassador abroad -- Grant & Ward -- Final campaign -- Epilogue

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